So after a twenty-minute walk to retrieve my car on Russian Hill, and then a frantic half hour trying to get out of San Francisco, followed by a traffic-plagued drive down 280, we were rewarded with a very nice garden party at Representative Lofgren's house in San Jose. (We talked to a woman who had driven up from Monterey County, so our trip wasn't nothin', really.) And I got to see Howard Dean speak, in person! I'm not very good at explaining this stuff (I'd better improve by election season!) but... wow. He really communicates passionately, but not bitterly. He hits at Bush hard, but he says positive things too, about his record in Vermont and what this country could be like. Dean's the kind of person who can, and does, say "We're all in this together" — and seem to mean it. For somebody who was considered an upstart, he harks back to better days of old quite a bit... and it's a good thing.
He's funny, too. When talking about the "No Child Left Behind" act, he said, "Teachers refer to it as "No School Building Left Standing.' Or, as I like to call it, 'No Behind Left.'" At a few points in the speech, his brain seemed to race ahead of his mouth — or perhaps he'd just repeated himself too many times that day — and he tripped over his tongue. He finally stopped himself with a loud "Bleh!" and commented that his speech would either end up in Mad Magazine or Karl Rove would be using it in his marketing materials next year.
I think this guy could really be president. Did I just jinx things? But this is as hopeful as I've felt about things here for a long time.
(P.S.: He talked about renewable energy! It gladdened my little former Home Energy magazine employee heart.)
